Over one quarter of the world’s net energy will come from renewables by 2020, new study predicts

While UK is currently one of the front runners in the ongoing clean energy race (around 25-percent of the nation’s electricity production comes from renewables), many countries across the globe continue to rely primarily on coal and other environmentally-harmful fossil fuels for energy. A new report by Paris-based International Energy Agency, however, paints a much brighter future, where over one quarter of the world’s total power needs will be met by sustainable, green sources of energy. According to the IEA, such a future will become a reality no later than 2020!

Pollution and climate change have been the topics of worldwide discourse, for quite some time now. By contrast, the efforts of various governments to combat and reverse environmental degradation have not been as pervasively documented as the former. The new study, entitled “Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2015”, recognizes the swiftly-expanding global movement aimed at raising awareness and instituting changes for the betterment of the environment. At the recent G20 Energy Ministers Meeting, in Turkey, Fatih Birol, the director of IEA, said:

Renewables are poised to seize the crucial top spot in global power supply growth, but this is hardly time for complacency. Governments must remove the question marks over renewables if these technologies are to achieve their full potential, and put our energy system on a more secure, sustainable path.

The last few years have been marked by a phenomenal growth of clean, eco-friendly energy resources, chief among which are wind, hydro and solar power. For instance, at present, nearly 22-percent of the world’s net energy is supplied by renewables. According to the experts at the IEA, by 2020, this figure will increase to around 26-percent, based on the assumption that an extra 700 gigawatts (approx. one billion watts) worth of green energy capacity will be added worldwide in the coming five years. If that happens, the newly-generated clean energy would be enough to power the entire country of Japan twice. The report states:

By 2020, the amount of global electricity generation coming from renewable energy will be higher than today’s combined electricity demand of China, India and Brazil.